The free world is the new continent in cyberspace that we have built so we can live here in freedom. It's impossible to live in freedom in the old world of cyberspace, where every program has its feudal lord that bullies and mistreats the users. So, to live in freedom we have to build a new continent. Because this is a virtual continent, it has room for everyone, and there are no immigration restrictions. - Richard Stallman -

The project's main goal is to provide a core operating system upon which more complete solutions can be built.

The first public development release was announced earlier today: "The Unity Linux project is pleased to announce its first beta release, 2010 Beta 1. Mandriva-based Unity Linux uses the MkLiveCD project, which allows developers to create their own distribution on top of a Unity Linux core. Nearly 7,000 packages are available after installation.

In an effort to give distribution developers maximum flexibility, the core is kept small and usable, but not too basic. Unity Linux provides developers with the bare minimum - just enough to make use of remastering tools, the Smart package manager, a 2.6.31.6 kernel, and RPM 5."

Update: (via Distrowatch)

The growing trend of developing Linux distribution featuring the latest Enlightenment 17 continues with the release of Unity Linux 2010_02 "Unite17": "We have another Unite17! A few sentences of the changes: brand-new exterior and interior, because I took the liberty of using the testing repositories. E17 at least not alpha, but beta - of course, there are still some annoying bugs, such as that if you want to start an application, which would need administrator rights, some incomprehensible error message appears; transparency works with minimum of memory while in use; the minimum system requirements at least PIII 900 MHz processor and at least 384 MB of RAM, OpenGL compatible graphics card; the CD image size is 2.5 GB, so it's not small; new Linux kernel (2.6.35.7), updated applications, and two new browser add-ons - Chrome TV plugin, which allows all the available Internet TV broadcast monitored, and an open-source YouTube video downloading add-on."

Unity Linux is a minimalist distribution and live CD based on Mandriva Linux and PCLinuxOS. The project's main goal is to create a base operating system on which more complete, user-oriented distribution can be built - either by other distribution projects or by the users themselves. Unity Linux uses Openbox as the default window manager. Its package management is handled via Smart and RPM 5 which can download and install additional software packages from the project's online repository.

Screenshots.

Official Screenshots of Unity Linux

Unity Linux Default Openbox Desktop

Unity Linux with XFCE

Unity Linux KDE Default

Unity Linux e17 Default

Unity Linux Gnome Default

User Contributed Screenshots Below.

User Contrib KDE4

User Contrib KDE4

Unity Linux Openbox User Contrib

Unity Linux Openbox User Contrib

Unity Linux e17 User Contrib

Enlightenment User Contrib

Enlightenment User Contrib

Enlightenment User Contrib

Gnome User Contrib: Cyborg by z3r0_k00l

Gnome User Contrib: Ice Cubez by z3r0_k00l

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